Today is one of the two weekly casual days for the home worker. Topless Wednesday and No Pants Friday are the freelancer’s equivalent of denim Fridays. So yes, I’m wearing a pair of jeans… and pearls.

Here’s what caught my attention today:

All the talk on the web today seems to be The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Here’s how you can learn some security tips from her, and from Kelly Diels, who wrote this post. I love the way Kelly writes - her voice really comes through!

Actually, let’s be honest: I LOVE WORDPRESS. My blog is my boyfriend. I adore it. I spend all my time with it. Because of all the fabulous people who love me up in the comments, my blog sates my unabashed lust for attention – which, in turn, has started saving me from terrible IRL relationship decisions.

(Wordpress is saving the world from needy girlfriends. Someone call the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.)

Are women less productive than men? Or does it just mean something different to us?

I’d like to see productivity come out of the factory-office mindset and into the modern world. I’d like to see us stop thinking about how many widgets we’ve cranked today, or how many emails we’ve processed, or how many business cards we’ve collected. I’d like to see us addressing the bigger picture, asking questions like:

• Why doesn’t my happiness seem to matter?
• Why do I keep over-committing myself?
• How many big goals can I realistically and sanely accomplish this year?

No, not me. I don’t know the first bloody thing about making pretty-pretty on my blog. I can post each day, change the occasional link in the sidebar, but that cosmetic stuff is soooo not for me.

Whenever I need a major change, or an update, or a plugin I don’t understand (and let’s face it, nothing in Wordpress makes any sense, ever, it’s all written in code for coders), I call Tammy from Tammy’s Designs. Tammy is the one who put this website together for me, loosely based on a theme by Attilus. Tammy also designed my political blog.

Anyway, she’s having a sale this week. Call it a “My son is going to college, ZOMG! Bills!” sale. She normally charges $225 for blog design and setup, as well as ongoing tech support for those annoying plugins and such. But this week only, she’s dropping her price to $180.

You can contact Tammy for further information and samples of her work by emailing

amomandherblog AT gmail DOT com

Although she normally offers hosting, she is “full” at this time. Which is bad timing for me, because I was hoping to switch this spring. C’est la vie, I suppose. Anyway, check her out for design and support. She’ll work with you to give your blog the look and feel that suits you best.

Over the past two weeks I’ve answered what affiliate marketing actually is, and how to get started with affiliate marketing. So now you’re into it, and making a few passive dollars every month. Maybe you’re blogging about a specific product in your niche, or perhaps you have a mini-site landing page to talk about one particular item, chock full of keywords.

Now what?

Well, that trickle of income is a nice buffer in your PayPal account, but it isn’t really enough to sustain you, is it? Like, you aren’t going to cash in your law degree and live off the proceeds - yet.

So how can you make more money with affiliate marketing?

Repeat Customers

Let’s say you sell an e-book for $40 and make $25 from the sale. Good for you! That’s $25 in your pocket! But then perhaps you sell something like an identity theft protection tool, which requires recurring payments every month or year. Perhaps the monthly charge is $9, from which you make $4. Over the course of a year, those $4 payments will far outstrip the $25 you made with the e-book.

Diversify your products. Sell some one-off items and sell some long-term items.

Create your own product

Everyone is an expert in something, but most people don’t realize it. Sit down and make out a list of at least 50 things you love doing. Now think about which ones you know a lot about. Is it knitting? Finding bargain antiques? Selling on eBay? Write an informational product based on your knowledge. Include bonus materials like takeaway lists, templates, videos, etc. Pop your item up onto e-junkie, put a widget on your website and/or create a landing page, and sell your own item.

It’s not passive income at the beginning, while you’re creating it, but then you can sit back and just sell the item once it’s done.

Recruit your own affiliates

So now you have your product on e-junkie, a widget on your blog, and a nice shiny landing page. You’ll make a few bucks here and there no doubt, but there has to be a quicker way, right? Yes. Recruit your own affiliates! By offering the usual 25-75% of the profits, you can enlist an army of other web writers and forum junkies to pimp your product for you. They make money, you make money - everybody wins!

Learn more about affiliate marketing

There’s enough information out there about affiliate marketing to write a nice long book. In fact, one has already been written. It is the go-to resource for those interested in becoming an affiliate, becoming a super-affiliate, and recruiting affiliates. Check out Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook.

I recently discovered that I write better to Lady Gaga than to Bob Dylan - for blog posts and web articles anyway. If I’m writing something cathartic (diary, creative non fiction), Joni Mitchell is perfect. Tom Waits is rarely a good idea!

It’s amazing what triggers the brain to pump words out onto a blank page. My ex-husband couldn’t write with anything except instrumental music playing in the background. I need to soak in the inspiration of others in order to feed my own.

So I always have something playing. The dog and I settle in for a day’s work - me at one end of the sofa, laptop at the ready, and he at the other chewing on his Hilary Clinton Chew Toy (or licking some inappropriate place) - and I click play on whatever I think will help the most.

Here’s some of what’s been on my playlist for most of the week:

• Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
• Best Damn Thing - Avril Lavigne
• Slow Down baby - Christian Aguilera
• Hands Held High - Linkin Park
• Now That You Got It - Gwen Stefani
• Don’t Let Me Get Me - Pink
• Everybody’s Changing - Keane
• Smile - Lily Allen
• Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge

What are y’all listening to as you typetty-type your little hearts out day after day?

I moved on Monday, and have had limited internet since then.That kinda sucks when you’re a freelance writer who works from home. My cable company is giving me the runaround on my new address, which is going to cost them hugely when they finally get around to selling me something. So for now I’m piggybacking off a neighbor, which means my bandwidth is sooo very limited.

But thanks to the wonders of the BlackBerry, I’ve been able to stay on top of things with my Google Reader.

Here are some articles I put stars next to, knowing they’d be helpful:

10 most common writing mistakes - we all make ‘em, let’s try to avoid them, at least in the rewrite.

Nobody’s reading my blog - you’ve got to get over this hit to your self-esteem, especially if you are a new blogger.

Flash is dead - and it’s about bloody time!

Demand Studios is now hiring in the UK and Canada

If you want to be a freelancer, you need to know about business - essential link!

Alright, I have 7 articles I need to pump out today. So the coffee maker is percolating, my brain is buzzing, and I’ll leave you to your day. Good luck and happy writing!

Break Studios, purveyors of such fine websites as Chickipedia, Break.com and Holy Taco, is hiring content writers.

Their articles are upbeat, informative, hip and young in style. Very heavy into the how-to genre. For example, one of the articles available is How to Have an Affair. Think you can hack writing that kind of article?

Break Studios sign up can be found here.

Break Studios is for legal United States residents or citizens only, so don’t bother applying if you don’t legally reside or pay taxes within the US.

Articles for Break run between 200-800 words, and pay is low/medium. More than some of the penny-per-word content mills out there, but nothing that will allow retire writing just one article per day. The average seems to be about $10. They pay monthly via PayPal.

If you are looking to improve your article writing, try The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing. Includes templates to streamline article writing, and tips to find inspiration when you truly believe there’s none to be found.

Good luck with Break Studios. Drop me a line after doing some business with them and let me know about the experience!

Last week I published a post on what affiliate marketing is. This week, let’s talk about getting started as an affiliate marketer.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn a passive income. Someone else creates the product, you pimp it, and you make a cut of all sales. It’s like being a retailer.

Top Affiliate Programs

The mother of them all is Amazon. But there are others.

• e-junkie has info products like e-books and programs
• Commission Junction you will find higher-end vendors like Apple, Audible and more
• Clickbank digital products like e-books, video programs and more

Pretty much any online site where payment is taken provides an opportunity for affiliates. If your readers are into online poker, there are plenty of online poker sites that offer affiliate programs. Just google “your niche + affiliate programs” and you’re sure to find something that will provide value to your readers and cash to your pocket.

Start Marketing

Once you have chosen a product or service to represent, write about it. Tell your readers what they stand to gain from buying/joining. Be sincere. Don’t make absurd promises, but talk about how the product or service can help the buyer in their own lives. Maybe that help is in the form of learning; maybe it’s entertainment.

If you find a great product that is far outside the niche of the website you already run, build a mini-site for that product! A URL and a simple landing page with keyword-dense copy will attract search engine traffic. Any other sites you own can also direct traffic over to your mini-site/landing page.

Earning Money

When a product or service is sold through your affiliate link, you can earn between 25-75% of the sale, usually to your PayPal account. If you sell one, a hundred, or a thousand copies of an e-book that someone else wrote, you receive that money. That’s why it’s considered a passive income: someone else does the work, you make the money. Whee!

Next week, I’ll post Affiliate Marketing: Beyond the Basics

To learn more about affiliate marketing and how to make a full-time passive income, check out Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook.

Once you finish reading the ‘Super Affiliate Handbook,’ you will have all the information you need to start your own profitable affiliate marketing business quickly, easily and inexpensively.

I suppose things have changed a little since I went to school 20 years ago – notebooks have given way to netbooks, and agendas have given way to the BlackBerry. Still, I like to peruse the aisles at Staples every now and then, just to remind myself that there was something enjoyable about the education process.

School on the other hand was always a horror. In the week leading up to the first day back, my guts would cramp up with fear and tension. I wouldn’t sleep. I would beg, plead and try to cut deals with everyone from my parents to god to the devil just to avoid having to go back.

Things changed when high school was over (in my case it ended rather abruptly with an expulsion at 15 and a GED exam at 16). It was finally in my power to choose my educational path. No longer would I be at the mercy of some state-mandated curriculum, in a class full of people I loathed.

I began to enjoy learning, and I chose to continue. Not with a structured post-secondary curriculum, but on my own. French, history, accounting for small businesses (strongly recommended for everyone), political science, Arabic. Islamic history. Military history. Religion. I never stopped learning. Some courses were structured, others online. Some were one-on-one lessons with experts. I bought and borrowed thousands of books.

Here are some new media-related courses you might enjoy. They vary in length, set-up and price.

MediaBistro: New Media 6-session self-paced course $179

IttyBiz: Online Business School $397

BBC: Intro to Video Production and Microphones for Sound & Radio FREE

Blogs, Wikis and New Media: Full online new media & social networking course FREE

As always, I strongly recommend Ali Hale’s products products - I’m nearly finished combing through The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing - and Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

These are both great e-courses you can take at your own pace.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn passive income off your website(s). Someone creates a product, you talk about it, sell it and earn a portion of the sale - anywhere from 25-75%.

The idea is to choose products and programs that you can be enthusiastic about. You can’t just say “Buy Product X” if you don’t know a damn thing about it. Believe me, it’s an easy mistake to make, and I think most affiliate marketers made it in the beginning. I know I did!

Find products and services you can benefit from yourself, and then you’ll know how to pitch them to other people. For example, I have no trouble reselling Ali Hale’s blogging products, because I’ve used them and they work. I’ve made money off the tips she offers, as well as from the affiliate sales. I believe in the products, so I have no trouble telling you to buy them - I know you won’t be disappointed.

How do you market products?

Lynn Terry has a great article on getting started with affiliate marketing and choosing how to present the products you wish to resell. You can either set up a mini-site specific to one product, or you can choose products within your own niche and talk about them on your regular site - that’s what I do here at Girl on the Write.

Getting Started

So how do you get started with this affiliate thingy?

• Find the products you wish to represent
• Sign up for the affiliate programs
• Create an e-junkie or ClickBank account (you’ll find many worthwhile products to represent via those two programs)
• Start pimping!
• Earn money!

See, it’s that simple.

Well, ok, maybe not that simple!

Stay tuned for the next installment - Affiliate Marketing: Getting Started

Remember books? I used to read them. Sometimes one each day! Now I’m lucky if I can read one book each month.

It began with fiction. Once I began blogging about news, politics and war, I stopped reading fiction. My fortunes went to pay for non-fiction tomes on subjects that gave me nightmares.

Then I gave up books altogether. Magazine articles were better suited to my blogger’s attention span.

Until even magazine articles became too long! My attention span became so short I started reading only other blog posts.

I had to retrain my brain to stop eating candy and start eating fiber again!

Fiction. Fun, cheap, sleazy fiction helped get me back into reading.  I picked up something light and fluffy, easy to rip through, and spent a weekend reading it over coffee.

Then I tacked some heavier political non-fic. It took longer. More than two weeks! I kept putting the book down to do something else, wandering off, forgetting about it. But I stuck with it and finished the damn thing.

When you blog, it’s easy to have your attention span eaten away. It’s the nature of the best. Especially with 24-hour news channels blaring their 2-minute sound bites in the background. Everything these days seems to come in easily digested single serving portions, but sometimes you need more substance.

Don’t let blogging eat your brain. Keep it in fighting form with New Yorker-length articles and good juicy books.